How to Rapidly Improve Speaking Skills

Even as written communication is important, spoken communication has been assuming an increasing role. We are called on to speak in such media as videos, teleconferences, and podcasts. Our ability to speak clearly is as important as our ability to formulate our arguments concisely and clearly. Phil Yaffe, who has provided advice to Ubiquity readers on how to write clearly and concisely, offers advice on how to speak clearly.

Most scientists and technologist today recognize the need to write well in order to better convey what they do to colleagues, managers, administrators, and the general public. But how about oral skills? After all, we spend much more time speaking than we do writing.

I am referring not only to giving formal speeches and presentations, but also informal encounters such as talking on the telephone, discussing ideas with colleagues, attending meetings, participating in seminars and workshops, or simply socializing after work.

The fact is, most people speak very poorly. I know, because l used to be a very poor speaker. Now I speak very well, at least that is what everyone tells me. My change from being a poor speaker to being a good speaker happened virtually overnight. I admit that I had a head start because I was already a pretty good writer, so I already knew how to cogently organize content. But delivering it orally was quite a different matter.

Here's the story.

I was a student at UCLA in the 1960s. After graduating, I spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania, East Africa. When I got there, of course everything was quite different from anything I had previously experienced. For one thing, I was posted to a tiny bush village next to what was supposed to be a major north-south road. Anything beyond 20 cars per day passing by was considered to be heavy traffic; in Los Angeles, less than 20 cars per minute was considered to be abnormally low traffic.

Perhaps the biggest surprise occurred when I turned on my shortwave radio. I quickly found the frequencies for both the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and the Voice of America. The difference was astounding.

Listening to the BBC, I heard cashiers, janitors, parking attendants, etc., speaking as if they had graduated from prestigious universities. By contrast, listening to Voice of America, I heard people at the top of the educational and social ladder speaking as if they had never even graduated from primary school.

This was no chance occurrence; it happened every time I turned on the radio. "How is it that high-level Americans seem to speak less well than low level Brits?" I kept asking myself. And found no answer.

After a few weeks I came to a startling conclusion. The apparent superiority of the Brits had nothing to do with either intelligence or education. It was in fact physical.

If you pay attention, you will notice that the British, particularly the English, tend to form their words on their lips, while Americans form them in the throat. This phenomenon is particularly noticeable among males, whose deep, gravely voice is considered to be masculine, virile and seductive.

I believe that forming words in the throat puts abnormal strain on the larynx, which is why Americans so often tend to stumble over their words. They frequently interrupt their speech with interjections such as "um", "ah", and other irritating hesitations. This is not because they don't know what to say next. It's because they are giving their vocal cords a momentary chance to recover.

To put the idea to the test, I consciously began forming my words on my lips rather than in the throat. My own irritating hesitations (I was notorious for this) vanished almost overnight. Suddenly I could put together a sentence that flowed fluently from one end to the other. In fact, I could put together whole series of sentences that flowed fluently from one end to the other with hardly a hesitation in sight.

Having tested this discovery over several weeks, I decided to purposely redesign my articulation. It wasn't easy. I had to consciously think about how I was forming my words virtually every minute of the day. However, after a couple of weeks it began feeling more and more natural, until finally it was.

All this happened 40 years ago. During the intervening four decades, I have gained somewhat of a reputation as an entertaining and provocative public speaker, not only in English but also in French (I live in Belgium). In short, redesigning my voice has worked extremely well for me. I don't know it if would work for anyone else, but I see no reason why not.

How can you tell if you are a throat speaker or a lip speaker? Here are a couple of simple tests.

First, put the fingers of one hand on your throat when you speak. If you can feel your vocal cords vibrating, then you are definitely a throat speaker. However, this is not definitive; you can still be a throat speaker without actually feeling the physical effect.

If the fingers-to-the-throat test fails, record your voice. If you sound anything like John Wayne or Jimmy Stewart (I'm not certain what the female equivalent would be), you could probably benefit from redesigning your articulation.

How?

Read a text aloud in your normal voice; then read it aloud again with a slightly higher pitch and exaggerated movements of your lips. You should hear a difference. Do this a few more times to be certain you hear a difference. Then start again with the same slightly higher pitch but less exaggerated lip movements. After a few tries, you should find a combination of pitch and lip movements that feels relatively comfortable.

From then on, each day try to use your new voice more and more frequently. It won't take too long before it will feel completely natural and you will find yourself using it all the time. I haven't used my "real" voice (i.e. the one I grew up with) in over four decades.

But two words of warning.

First, sounding better does not ipso facto make you a better speaker; it just makes you more listenable. As with writing, the real test of good speaking is what you say, i.e. content, rather than how you say it. If your ideas are ill formed and incoherent, no matter how well you express them, they will still fail to convince.

Secondly, if you do decide to make the change, you are likely to develop a pseudo "Oxbridge" English accent. This is quite normal; forming words on the lips naturally gives rise to this type of accent. However, out of context it can be rather embarrassing.

Since I was living with a lot of British expatriates in Tanzania, my new way of speaking didn't seem particularly odd. However, the minute I returned to Los Angeles, people began commenting on it, including my mother. "Where did you pick up that snooty accent? Get rid of it." So I did. I found a middle ground between the two accents. You can too.

If you are serious about improving your speaking, here's a tip. Why not join a local chapter of Toastmasters International? Toastmasters is a worldwide club of people in all walks of life dedicated to helping each other improve their orals skills. Participating is inexpensive, painless, and a lot of fun (http://www.toastmasters.org).

Philip Yaffe is a former reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal and a marketing communication consultant. He currently teaches a course in good writing and good speaking in Brussels, Belgium. His recently published book In the "I" of the Storm: the Simple Secrets of Writing & Speaking (Almost) like a Professional is available from Story Publishers in Ghent, Belgium (http://www.storypublishers.be) and Amazon (http://www.amazon.com).

Hello Mr. Yafee. Thank you for sharing this article. I am an IB diploma student living in the Bible Belt of the U.S. I have been trying to work on my speaking skills because we do a lot of oral presentations that are shipped overseas to be reviewed. Thanks to your advice, I can safely say that my speaking skills have improved tremendously. This is an excellent article and it has really helped me. Have you thought about making a video for this?

— James Smith, Wed, 03 Dec 2014 07:30:09 UTC

Thanks for such an interesting article. I am in a business where I have to interact with American people almost on daily basis. Listening to them has helped me to understand their accent. It is still a challenge to communicate in their accent. To take care of this I became member of the toastmaster international, where I did learn a great deal.
I still need a solution that works fast for me. Your physical theory does explain a lot. What else can I do to take care of the problem. I shall buy the book as well.
Thanks in advance

— Saroj, Thu, 06 Feb 2014 05:44:10 UTC

Hi Philip, thank you so much for sharing your great experience about improving English. Yes, it can be improved by observing and repeating constantly. I've also been troubled with fluent English as I mumble while presenting my designs to the interviewers and because of that I lost some good jobs in great companies. I need to improve my spoken English very fast. Hope so soon will get over this.
I have really enjoyed your article and it's inspiration for me.

— yogesh khandare, Fri, 04 Oct 2013 12:34:33 UTC

Hello Yafee,
Really thanks for sharing your wonderful experiences that how did you improve your speaking skills. It's very true that social interaction and culture is very effective not only on the personality of a person and also on his/her speech. In my student life, I was also a good speaker even in English language although I am non-native English speaker. Since, I have joined a profession to work with the Deaf in 2004 I am feeling a lot of difficulties even to pronounce the words, it does not mean that I dont have the English vocabulary or the thoughts to speak but I could not say many times a simple sentences and my tongue mumble even on easy words. Secondly, long time before I had read a research based article, sorry I forget the name but I still remember the wording that if someone works in same culture and atmosphere least for three years, it effect on the personality as well as on the communication skills either in negative or positive sense BUT it effect. For example a worker who works in a factory where the noise is more than 40 dB can be effected by hearing loss and as a result s/he speaks loudly buts s/ he doesnt realize that how loudly is he speaking and it also effect on his/her speaking capabilities.
Social interaction plays a vital role to improve the speaking skills, really agreed with you. Now, I am trying to improve my oral skills and learning that how can I reinstate my speaking skills.
Look forward to hear more from you about your life experiences.
Thanks.

— Imran Hussain, Fri, 17 May 2013 20:48:00 UTC

this article is excellent and will be helpful to others who are not confident in their speech. Thank you.